


Leaving

by beespiesandplaid



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-21
Updated: 2016-06-21
Packaged: 2018-07-16 10:54:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7265221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beespiesandplaid/pseuds/beespiesandplaid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ronan isn't ready for Adam to go to college.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Leaving

He isn’t fucking ready. The date has been written in red in his mind for months – ever since Adam got his college acceptance. A slow count down has been ticking in his mind, starting in the hundreds, a number of days that seemed infinite, and slowly shrinking down into single digit. And now it is tomorrow.

Tomorrow they get up disgustingly early, drop Opal off to stay with Maura (which she is happy about, because 300 fox way always has a myriad assortment of children to play with and strange things to eat) and then they drive for ten hours down to Cambridge, Massachusetts. And then Ronan turns around and drives back, alone.

_Fuck._

How did summer pass so quickly, so uneventfully? Did they really do nothing more than spend their days lazing around at the barns? He recalls the hundreds of pictures shared of Gansey and Blue on their trip, the years of adventure packed into a few weeks, and feels suddenly resentful at his complacency.

He should have done more.

“Ronan?” Adam says, walking into the kitchen. “Have you seen my boots? The ones with the red laces.”

Ronan swallows the lump in his throat and goes to the porch, digging through the assorted shoes (at least ten pairs of which belong to Opal, specially dreamt to accommodate her feet)  until he pulls out Adam’s smartest shoes, neat except for the bright red cord that he’d replaced the worn out laces with.

“I’ve got spare boot laces, if you want,” Ronan says. He isn’t sure how he can manage normal sentences when underneath the surface his heart is navigating an unknown ocean.

He’s never had the chance to prepare for loss before.

“Thanks. Hey – I, well. I saved, and I got a new phone. It can do video calls and everything. So we can keep in touch.”

Ronan turns away, closing his eyes. Adam rests a hand on his shoulder. “Ronan?”

Ronan inhales, exhales, memorizes the feeling of Adam’s fingers gripping his shoulder. One, two, three, four, five points of contact, solid and warm and reassuring.

Tomorrow night he’ll be alone.

“I’m… fuck this, Parrish. I’ll… I’ll be outside.”

He leaves Adam in the kitchen, catching a glimpse of him, hand slowly falling to his side in confusion. He’s learnt Adam over the last few months, and Adam has learnt him, but Ronan has not learnt how to vocalise his feelings. He isn’t sure there are coherent sentences to explain what he is feelings – some emotion akin to slipping through a sandtimer into an aching void.

For fucks sake, Lynch. It’s not as if he’s dying. He’ll be back.

But Adam wants to leave. Wants it more than anything. He’s been counting down the days left with anticipation, not dread.

Maybe… Maybe when Adam tastes the big wide world, the suits and handshakes and respect, maybe he’ll not be so keen on this small pocket of life. Maybe he’ll not be so keen on a boy who aspires to drive really fucking fast and raise cows.

There’s a terrible irony in the realization that his dreams might not be big enough for Adam.

Ronan climbs onto the roof of one of the outbuildings, the same place he went after kissing Adam for the first time, trying to recall that infallible hope Adam’s lips upon his had conjured.

It’s just a hurdle. All relationships face challenges. They’ll get through it. They have too.

But so many don’t. Long distance is risky. Declan had said so, just last week. So had Calla.

Ronan knew that no amount of distance would lessen what he felt towards Adam, but he had always been certain of his feelings. He had to trust that Adam was too.

And it should be easy. Last night, Adam had mapped out their lives on Ronan’s skin, confessed his love in breathy gasps, traced his fingers over every inch of him, promising forever between kisses. It should be easy to believe that.

But it wasn’t the middle of the night any more. It was 3 o clock on an over-cast afternoon, and the last three months felt like a dream. It was time for reality.

The roof creaks beneath Adam’s weight as he climbs up, and Ronan can’t look at him.

“Ronan? Talk to me.”

Adam sits down beside him, leaning into him. Ronan leans back, though it feels like Adam is shrinking ever smaller, further away. How can he sleep with 500 miles between them?

“It’s nothing, Parrish.” He says, because how can he say what he is feeling?

_Stay. Stay with me. Forever and ever and ever because I can’t bear not seeing you in the morning._

Those are selfish desires. He wants Adam to be happy, above all. He can’t describe how proud he was when Adam got accepted into Harvard, how amazing it has been to see Adam grow from a scared boy into the strong shouldered person who sits beside him.

“It’s not nothing,” Adam whispers, taking Ronan’s hand.

“It is selfish.”

“We’re all selfish.”

Ronan sighs, and lets his fingers play over Adam’s, looking at their joined hands, the jutting knuckles and calluses he used to dream of pressing to his lips. Now he can. He does, kissing Adam’s hand like it’s the last time.

Adam lets out a breath, long and slow.

“You know, I’m terrified too.”

Ronan blinks, surprised.

“I know you’ve been dreading tomorrow, OK. I just… I don’t think you’ve realized that I have too.”

“Why?”

Adam rolls his eyes. Ronan remembers the early days, remembers falling for that specific expression of exasperation.

“I don’t _want_ to leave you, you know.”

Ronan thinks he probably should have known that, but he’s never been terribly good at seeing things sensibly. He lets out a small “oh” of surprise. And then,

“Well, obviously, Parrish. I’m a delight to be around.”

Adam elbows him for his obnoxiousness. “It’s OK to be worried. But… we’re gonna get through it. I’ll be back. And you can come and visit.”

“And you’ll tell everyone about me?”

“About my street-racing farmer boyfriend who I’m raising a child with? I might mention him once or twice…”

“Opal will miss you.”

Adam sighs, tucks his knees up under him. “I wish I could say I’d stay, Ronan. I wish this life was enough for me here. I feel… I feel awful that it isn’t, OK? But… I worked so hard for this. This is my dream.”

“I’d never ask that of you, you fucker. Don’t even imply that I would. I want this for you. I just wish it didn’t hurt so fucking much.”

“I know.”

“Why’s it so easy for some people?” Ronan bursts out, letting loose resentment he didn’t know he was holding. “Blue and Gansey – they just fuck off and do whatever they like, together, and…”

“I’d not change us.” Adam says, soft. Ronan rests his head against Adam’s shoulder.

“I worry I won’t be enough,” he whispers, so quiet he barely hears himself. He feels nausea rise up with the words, but he can’t leave them unsaid. “I’m… there’s so much more than me out there in the world. Why would you want to come back, once you’ve seen it all?”

Adam tenses beside him. “What will it take to make you believe that I feel it to?” he grits out, and Ronan knows he’s hit a nerve, and maybe that’s what he wanted, to see what was underneath Adam’s cool exterior.

Ronan shrugs, pushing Adam over the edge, and he should feel guilty for that, but he looks and there it is, in Adam’s eyes, the longing and emotion Ronan carries around with him everyday.

Adam opens his mouth, closes it again. His fists clench in his lap. Ronan waits. Adam leans in, kisses him like he is drowning. The ocean within him rises in response. His shirt is off, and it doesn’t matter that he’s on the roof and it is September, because each place where Adam touches is him is left burning.

He focuses on the moment, every nerve and sensation of it. If he can return to this, live in this small, burning second, he can endure the months apart. It is this, Adam’s lips, soft and insistent against his own, it is the soft fabric of Adam’s shirt gripped between his fingers, it is the scent of him, laundry powder and remnants of engine oil from the garage, the remainders of toothpaste because he always brushes after lunch (do I look like I can afford dental care, Parrish? Let those cavities try and fucking catch me), it is gasps and moans and whispered names, reverent in their promises. It is emotion overcoming desire, choking him. It is both of them, holding each other, foreheads pressed together, tears in their eyes.

“We’re going to be OK.” Ronan whispers, and it’s a promise and a question.

“Fine,” Adam replies, and it’s a commitment and an answer. “After ten hours driving you’ll be sick of me anyway. You’ll need a break.”

Ronan shakes his head. “I’ll drive back next weekend. You’re lucky I like cars so much.”

“Maybe I’ll drive back. To escape my shitty dorm room.”

“And envy me a brief taste of college life? How could you.”

They laugh, and the ocean retreats, calm for the moment.

“I’ll call you so much you’ll be sick of me,” Adam says. Ronan laughs.

“Maybe I’ll actually start using my phone.”

“I’ll train Opal to answer it.”

…

Ten hours pass faster than he knew was possible, and it’s 4pm and they’re pulling up outside Adam’s new accommodation. Ronan looks at the building that Adam is to call home for half the year, generic brick and neat square windows, architecture a couple of decades out of date.

He looks across the grass out front, imagines Adam hurrying to class, coffee in one hand, books under his arm. He imagines him fitting into a life so different from his own. Adam climbs out of the car, letting out a long sigh.

“So,” he says.

“Ready to meet your intellectual equals?”

“Not really,” Adam says, but Ronan sees the glint of excitement in his eyes, and finally it makes him smile.

“You’ll take them by storm.”

“What does that even mean?”

Ronan snorts. “No idea. Go look it up in a library.”

“So… are you gonna come in with me?” Adam asks, a little shy, a little like the first time Ronan ended up sleeping with him at st Agnes, after they got together. Ronan grins.

“As if I’d miss the chance to intimidate new people.”

They unpack Adam’s things. It doesn’t take long. They end up sat cross legged on his twin bed, looking at each other like it’s the last chance they’ll get.

“It doesn’t feel like home,” Adam says.

“It isn’t, is it?”

“No. I always thought I’d feel so free when I left Henrietta but…” Adam shrugs. Ronan knows what he means. It’s people that make home.

Ronan leans in to kiss him, closed mouthed but lingering. Adam catches his jaw, runs his hands over his face. Ronan feels like he’s being committed to memory.

Adam’s roommate rolls up at five, a skinny kid with huge glasses and a toothy grin. Ronan doesn’t think he’ll be a problem, but he kisses Adam full on the mouth just in case the kid has some violent homophobic tendencies.

He just grins at Adam and nods approvingly. Adam blushes right to the roots of his dusty hair, and Ronan grins.

“Evening,” he says, serpent smile in place. The kid stutters, and Adam leads Ronan out of the room.

“I could stay,” Ronan murmurs. “For a night.”

“Better not,” Adam replies.

“You’ll be OK?”

“You sound like Gansey.”

“Jesus,” Ronan says. “It’s all this parenting business. It’s given me mom friend tendencies I never asked for.”

Adam grins, kisses him again. Ronan presses him against the door of the bmw, memorizes the warmth of him against his body.

“Two weeks,” Adam says. “Flights are already booked.”

“One week. Bmw’s always got fuel.”

“Come on. If you leave now you’ll get halfway before it’s dark.”

“One more kiss.”

One turns to two, to three, to four, a bruise left on Adam’s neck, fingerprints bruised into Ronan’s hip, breathing entirely too heavy for being in public.

Ronan pulls out of the parking lot, watching Adam shrink in the rear-view mirror, hand raised in farewell. He can still taste him.

His phone rings after five minutes, and he pulls over to answer it.

“Hey,” Adam says.

“Hey, college boy,” Ronan laughs, because it’s ridiculous, but he kind of needs to hear Adam’s voice one more time before he drove.

“I’ll call at midnight,” Adam says.

“I love you,” Ronan says, blushing as he says it, even though there’s no one to see. He’s never said it on the phone before.

“You too.” Adam hangs up.

Maybe he plays the murder squash song on repeat for most of the drive home, and maybe he cries a little when he unlocks the front door of the barns, and sees Adam’s battered trainers laying lopsided on the matt, and maybe he and Opal rattle around for the first few days, a little lost without Adam making them both laugh.

But the last thing he hears is every night is Adam saying he loves him, and in 6 days he can go and visit, and the cows need feeding and he’s got a million jobs to do at the barns and he’s OK.

 

 


End file.
